The greatest breach of ettiquette imaginable
by Reikah
Summary: Upon arriving in a world where the inhabitants' souls exist outside the body in the form of an animal, the travelers discover a little about themselves. KuroFai, quick sappy little fusion with His Dark Materials.
1. Chapter 1

They arrived in a world where people's souls roamed outside their bodies in the shape of spirit animals, free for anybody to harm. Their hostess was a young female scholar with an academic institution who had been shocked when they had appeared without warning on the roof upon which she took her lunch, and she was kind enough to provide Syaoran with a key to the library.

"Thank you, Miss," Syaoran said, bowing deeply. Her soul animal, a pine marten with fur of the brightest red, was twined around her neck watching him. "We won't be here long. We can't stay in any one world forever."

"I know," she said, and her smile was sad and wistful.

Kurogane found the concept of an external soul a worrying one; he would side-eye the people they passed in the street, the animals trotting after them or flying above them or carried, concealed, in their clothing. The people here for their part seemed to find the travelers frightening.

"Sir, sir, where's your daemon?" said one child, tugging on Fai's sleeve as the wizard bent over a selection of fine, glittering wristwatches, silver and embossed with gold, displayed upon a velvet cloth in the marketplace.

Fai turned to her in surprise. A small group of children behind her were clustered close to the wall, watching them with wary, worried expressions; she was clearly their spokesperson.

"Kid," Kurogane rumbled. Fai shushed him with a hand on his wrist.

"Only you can't be witches, cos you're men," said the girl, determined. "So we was wondering where your daemons was."

Fai smiled at her; a gentle, warm smile that was still all too rare. Kurogane tensed; this was beginning to remind him of the time they'd landed in the world where everyone had no shadow, and they'd had to flee early when the locals turned nasty.

"Who says I'm not a witch, hmmm?" Fai said, teasingly. The girl's eyes grew even wider.

"Billy says men can't be witches because... because witches kill the men," she said.

"And yet, here I am," said Fai, and Kurogane rolled his eyes. "As a matter of fact, my... daemon is right here."

"Really," the girl said, sounding suspicious. Kurogane shot the wizard a narrow-eyed glare, which Fai ignored with typical aplomb.

"Yes," he said, and he undid the top button on the long dun trench coat he wore in these kind of worlds, and before Kurogane could ask him what the hell he was playing at he'd plunged a hand inside and pulled something - something furry and wriggling from an inside pocket.

Kurogane sputtered.

"See?" Fai said, ignoring him. The creature twisted in his palm; it resembled a cat but with a long body and short tail. Its tiny ears were triangular.

"That's just a ferret," said the girl dismissively.

"Ouch," said the ferret.

"She's so mean to us~" Fai agreed in a sing-song voice, while Kurogane did a double-take so fast he thought he might wrench his own neck.

The ferret wriggled its nose and sighed. "You'd think people would know a real witch when they saw one, too."

"Witch familiars are _birds_," the girl said scornfully. Her own daemon, which had been sitting on her shoulder in the form of a mouse, turned to a pigeon as if to illustrate this.

"Mmm," Fai hummed agreement. "But maybe male witches are different, yes?"

"Very different," the ferret agreed solemnly. Fai lifted it to his shoulder, where it tangled itself around his neck.

"What the fuck," Kurogane said.

Fai pouted. "Kuro-chan is a witch too," he said to the little girl, as if confiding something secret. "He doesn't want to be, so he's very grumpy about it."

"What? Idiot, I'm not-"

"Ve~ry gru~umpy," the ferret said in a singsong voice that was higher in pitch than Fai's, and the little girl giggled.

"What's his daemon?" she asked, eagerly, and Fai put a finger to his lips, folding his arms in mock-thought.

"Well," he said. "He's a big, grumpy dog -"

"Wizard!"

"- but really, he's very loyal and more bark than bite -"

"_Wizard!_"

"- and he takes good care of his master," Fai finished, cheerfully, and Kurogane grabbed him by the arm.

"We're _going_," he growled.

"Bye!" said the girl, already skipping back to her friends, no doubt full of stories about the strange men.

"Bye!" said the ferret, as Kurogane towed them back towards the "university".

They had been assigned a small room often used by traveling scholars; it had two, small beds on the opposite ends of the room, two cramped desks with lights over them, and side tables separating the beds as if keeping lovers apart. They'd pushed the beds together as soon as they were assigned the rooms. Syaoran slept opposite; the light was on under his door, and Fai knocked on it lightly.

"Syaoran-kun," he called. "Could you come into our room? There's something we have to talk about."

Without waiting for a response he turned and walked away, stepping past Kurogane standing glowering in the hall and opening their door.

Syaoran emerged a few minutes later, his hair ruffled and the black smudges under his eyes indicating that he had stayed up late. There was ink smeared across his fingers, but he looked happy. "I was talking to the scholar who took us in," he said, when he entered. "She has a fascinating device called an Aleth - um, Fai-san?"

"Mmm?" Fai said. The ferret was curled up in his lap; her eyes gleamed brightly in the lamplight.

"Where did you get that?" Syaoran asked, sounding impressed.

"The idiot _summoned_ her," Kurogane said, grumpily.

"It's easy!" Fai said happily. "You just have to close one eye and look for the edges where your daemon should be."

"Yeah," said Kurogane. "No."

Fai pouted. "The people here are already scared enough of Kuro-tan," he said lightly. "People without daemons are terrifying monsters to the population of this world."

"The... edges?" Syaoran said, dubiously.

"Yes," Fai said. "You can see them if you squint."

Looking a little wary, Syaoran put a hand over his eye and stared into the middle distance with an intense expression on his face; Kurogane felt sorry for the poor kid. "Don't listen to the wizard," he said. "There's nothing there."

"No," Fai agreed, surprising him, then ruined it with - "Your daemon is sitting on the chair, Syaoran."

Syaoran looked over in surprise, and Fai grinned, a flash of sharp teeth. "It might take a few tries to see her," he said.

"Her?" Kurogane noted.

Fai nodded. "Most people here seem to have different gendered daemons. Maybe it represents the duality of their natures." He stroked one hand gently down the ferret's back, and she rolled over and wrapped her limbs around his hand, nipping his finger.

Kurogane snorted. "Sure," he said. "For someone who calls himself mommy and wears women's clothing in -"

"No more!" Syaoran said, hastily. "Please, no more!"

"You heard our son, Kuro-overshare," Fai said, and he wasn't grinning so much as _leering_. "There's only so much any poor boy can be expected to hear, mmm?"

"Oh, shut up," Kurogane said, with a sigh. Syaoran was still staring at the back of the chair with a thoughtful expression on his face; the ninja crossed the room to stand next to Fai, who had his head angled down, studying the writhing _thing_ in his lap.

"Why did you choose a _ferret_," he asked, looking down at the creature. He'd've thought a cat would've been more Fai's thing.

"I didn't," Fai said. "She chose herself." He scratched behind her ear with a forefinger; she unfolded herself and shimmied up his arm to perch on his shoulder.

"_We_ chose me," she said, proudly, and Fai grinned.

"You got a name?" Kurogane asked her, warily, and poked at her with his little finger. She seemed so scrawny, but her fur was soft and sleek (like a certain idiot's hair, his treacherous brain thought).

Fai sucked in a breath, and his whole body tensed.

"What is it?" Kurogane asked, freezing. He was worried he had hurt her somehow and that the wizard had felt it, but Fai ducked his head so his long bangs covered his face, his neck, bare beneath the ponytail, turning pink. "Wizard?"

"Syaoran-kun," Fai said very quietly, "Could you leave mommy and daddy alone for a while?"

"What - oh," Syaoran said, and chewed his lip. "Oh. Yes. Um. Yeah," and he was leaving the room faster than Kurogane liked.

"What was that about?" Kurogane said, staring after him as he closed the door behind him. "You've never- "

And Fai surged up and kissed him, roughly and wetly, teeth nipping.

Kurogane _mmm_fed in surprise, but Fai swallowed the sound and deepened the kiss; his shoulders were rigid under Kurogane's hands. He fisted his hands in Kurogane's shirt and pulled Kurogane heavily toward him, sending them tumbling onto the bed. Kurogane tried to get his hands out to brace their fall, and Fai hooked one leg over the back of his knee and ran a hand through his hair, kissing him the whole time.

When the wizard finally let him go, both of them were breathless and there was colour riding high along Fai's cheekbones. Kurogane raised an eyebrow.

"You touched me," Fai said, sounding embarrassed.

"You kissed me, moron," Kurogane said, although he didn't have the normal bite in his tone; couldn't, with Fai so warm underneath him.

"No. My - my daemon, you _touched_ her and it felt - it felt like - fuck, Kuro-chan," and Fai let his head loll back.

"You kissed me because I touched your daemon?" Kurogane said, mystified.

"You touched our soul," the daemon itself clarified quietly. It had scuttled free of Fai's shoulder when Fai pulled them down to the bed, and was watching them from the pillow, its sleek white fur contrasting with the boring brown of the pillowslip.

Kurogane looked back down at Fai, who was watching him with half-lidded eyes. He tried to imagine what that would be like, to have a stranger's hands upon your bare naked soul, especially for Fai who spent so long hiding and concealing; it didn't come to him. "Sorry," he said, uncertainly.

"Kuro-tan," Fai said, and leaned up to nibble at his throat; Kurogane rolled his head back to allow the mage's clever mouth easier access. "Do it again," and Kurogane groaned.

He woke up the next morning with Fai asleep across his chest, face buried in his clavicle. He would never, ever understand how the wizard could accomplish that, and yet Fai did it near every night, without fail.

The ferret was curled up on the night table, asleep like Fai was. He wondered if it were possible for one to be awake without the other.

"Wizard," he said, his voice still thick with sleep. He wanted to piss and to shower and he could do neither with Fai doing his level best to crush him under his weight; scrawny as Fai was, even his weight started to tell after several hours.

The bare skin of Fai's back gleamed still with sweat, and he smelled gross; sex and sweat and his own musk. His breath against Kurogane's nose could only be described as "nasty". He didn't so much as twitch when Kurogane called him by his title again, nor when he shook the idiot, and neither did his daemon. Kurogane suppressed a groan and began the laborious task of manhandling the mage off him.

He swung his legs over the side of his bed and stretched, yawning. Fai made a displeased sound behind him and rolled over, burying his face in Kurogane's pillow, and Kurogane let himself grin now that he was confident the moron couldn't see him do so.

He took two steps toward the door, snatching up a towel from the foot of the bed, and fell over something solid on the carpet that hadn't been there when they'd gone to bed.

"Ouch," said a cranky male voice that was somehow _familiar_ and foreign simultaneously.

"You're fucking with me," Kurogane said, sitting up.

"I wish," said the wolf, glaring back at him.

Kurogane scowled at the wolf, which scowled back at him. It-_he_ was big, and muscled, and black, with dark red markings like a dog that Kurogane was pretty sure didn't occur naturally. His eyes were gold to Kurogane's red, but just as annoyed.

"Mmm... Kuro-tan," Fai said, sleepily, from above them on the bed.

"I didn't even do that... squinty thing," Kurogane hissed.

"You didn't have to," his wolf hissed back.

"Kuro-chan? What are you -" Fai's head emerged over the end of the bed, and Kurogane groaned as his lips curved upward, into a very pointed smile. "Hello," he said, happily. "You must be Kuro-woof!"

The wolf growled, putting his ears back, and Fai burst into peals of laughter. He reached out, slowly, and carded his fingers through the wolf's shaggy fur, and Kurogane had to grit his teeth against a wave of _something_; it felt grossly intimate. The wolf merely closed his eyes and tilted his head into the mage's questing fingers.

"I can't wait to get out of here," Kurogane said, setting his jaw, and Fai gave him a _look_.

"Kuro-wolf is so grouchy," he said, sweetly. His fingers found the underside of the wolf's jaw, and with a growl Kurogane leaned forward and kissed him to distract him.

He still hated the idea of something so valuable just _wandering around_, but... it had its benefits.

* * *

><p><strong>Notes:<strong> Fai's daemon is a ferret, as mentioned explicitly in the text. Kurogane's is a gray wolf, for reasons that are fairly obvious. Syaoran's, which I never got round to putting in, is a peregrine falcon: they mate for life and always return to their nesting sites.


	2. Epilogue

_written for livejournal's 'where are they now' meme, in which people could request a story and ask to see what happened a certain amount of time after its ending. cloverfield asked for 'the next world they go to'._

* * *

><p>It was a relief when Mokana's earring lit up. It wasn't that there was anything wrong with the world itself, but the wolf was fucking irritating and Kurogane would be glad to be away from it.<p>

"You are the only person I know who could have a feud with his own soul," Fai said, amused.

"It's annoying," Kurogane replied. He was packing his belongings, neatly to keep them from being damaged, unlike the idiot peacock he slept with who just threw them into their bags and used his magic to keep them from looking like a pile of creases afterward. It seemed a waste of time to Kurogane.

"So are you," his wolf snapped back. It was sitting by the door, watching them. Fai's ferret was wrapped still around his throat.

"Shut up," Kurogane told it. "I can't wait to get rid of you."

"Maybe I'll be getting rid of you," said the wolf grumpily.

"Kuro-chan and Kuro-wolf are so similar," said Fai's daemon with some glee as her other half hummed agreement. Fai was pushing their beds apart, back to the way they had been when they were given the room.

"My name is not _Kuro-wolf_!" the wolf snapped. "Keep that up, tidbit, and maybe I'll -"

"Faiiiii," wailed the ferret. "He's being _mean_ to us."

"He's a mean daemon," Fai agreed.

"He's rude," Kurogane snarled. "Rude and scruffy and too damn nosey."

"I'm your soul, idiot," said the wolf. "There's no point trying to _shut me out of your bedroom_."

"You could take a hint," Kurogane said, throwing his socks at his daemon, who simply caught them out of the air and trotted past him to leap onto Fai's bed and dropped them into Fai's bag. Fai made a pleased noise and scratched the wolf behind the ears, a deliciously intimate sensation that made Kurogane shiver all over.

A soft call came from the hallway and Syaoran's daemon flew through the open door, alighting on the back of the chair with mighty beats of her wings. She cocked her head, angling a thoughtful look at them through her wide golden eyes. Her talons were wrapped tightly around her perch.

"Hello there," Fai said lightly. "Is Syaoran-kun ready to go?"

"Yes, he is," she said politely. She could go much further from her human than theirs could, although when they'd asked Lyra why this was so she had gotten this sad look on her face and looked at Syaoran with haunted eyes before changing the topic. "He's waiting for you in the main hall."

"Well, I think we're both about ready," Fai said, leaning on his bag so he could shut it. Kurogane's wolf jumped off his bed and seized Ginryuu in its jaws.

"Yeah, me too," Kurogane said, hefting his bag and narrowing his eyes at his daemon. Fai sigh and stroked his ferret, who made a small noise and nipped at his fingers. "C'mon, let's go."

Fai opened the window to let Syaoran's falcon out; although she could fly in the hallways it was harder for her than the glide down to the main hall's room was. He closed it once she had gone and threw his bag over his shoulder. Kurogane held the door for him and shut it after him. "Is Kuro-wolf such a bother to you, Kuro-grumpy?" he asked as they made their way through the university's corridors. The daemon pricked its ears up but didn't say anything, couldn't with the sword in its mouth.

"Yes," Kurogane said, glaring at it.

"We didn't even get a chance to name them," Fai said sadly. The scholar had told them most daemons knew their names when they were made, but theirs, having only been 'discovered' recently, were an exception. She had known one other like them, she said, and a witch had named his daemon for him. Fai seemed hung up on being the one to bestow a name upon the wolf, although Kurogane had put his foot down, knowing both that the daemon would be gone when they left this world like the kudans had when they left Hanshin and that Fai would choose a stupid fucking nickname for it.

"You'll live," he replied, and Fai looked at him with knowing eyes.

"It seems fairly obvious to me that Kuro-puppy is so grumpy with Kuro-wolfy because Kuro-wolfy is too like him," he said. "What will you do if they don't go away when we change worlds?"

Kurogane stopped in the middle of the corridor, forcing Fai to turn around and look back at him. "Could that happen?" he asked, urgently. It wasn't so much the constant snarking of the damn wolf that made the idea sit uncomfortably with him, it was the thought of an enemy being able to see his _soul_ and act accordingly.

Fai smiled and shrugged, and Kurogane narrowed his eyes. The wolf came to his side then, its ears pricked up; it nuzzled against Fai's legs, causing Kurogane to grit his teeth and swear at it in a low voice. It ignored him haughtily.

"Kuro-wolfy is so sweet," Fai crooned, and Kurogane rolled his eyes and seized Ginryuu from its mouth, stomping his way down the corridor. Fai's laughter rang out behind him loud and clear.

Lyra and Syaoran were talking when they arrived, sitting opposite each other at a long table still littered with breakfast debris. Their heads were bowed, brown hair and dark gold mixed, as they peered over a bronze clock-like object in Lyra's hands. Syaoran's falcon was sitting on the chair next to him; Mokana was examining the clock thing with Lyra's daemon.

"Fai," the falcon called when she caught sight of them. "Kurogane."

"There you are," Syaoran said, smiling. He turned his attention back to Lyra, bowing to her even as he stood up. His falcon flew to his shoulder. "I wish I could stay and see more of it, Miss. I'll keep in mind what you said about the underworld."

"Good luck," she replied, smiling.

"Goodbye," echoed her daemon.

"You ready to go, kid?" Kurogane said, and Syaoran nodded. He came to stand with them as Mokana lit up. Kurogane's daemon leaned against him heavily; he looked and saw Fai had his ferret in his hands, held up to his mouth, his lips moving as he murmured something into her ears. He looked down at his wolf, which looked up at him, its ears going back.

"What," it said.

"I guess you could be worse," Kurogane told it - him.

"You too," he said, and then the world was fading away from them in a blur as they were pulled backward, lights and colors speeding away.

The journey ended in water and Kurogane reacted instinctively; it wasn't the first time Mokana had landed them in an ocean. He looked around for the light source, scooped up the nearest body - light, small: Mokana - and forced his way to the surface with powerful kicks of his legs. His wet hair had plastered itself to his eyes and he shook his head to clear them as he gasped in air. Fai surfaced inches away from him, sucking in deep breaths; he looked ridiculous, like a drowned rat. "You okay, pest?" Kurogane asked, looking down to check on the cream puff.

Fai's ferret looked even more ridiculous wet than its master did.

"Oh no," Kurogane said.

"I like pest," said the ferret. "That can be my name!"

"Kuro-fluffy does a good doggy paddle," Fai said, grinning, and Kurogane looked over to see his wolf doing just that. Syaoran's falcon was resting on his head, looking miserable. Her feathers were soaked through.

"Why does this always happen to me," Kurogane groaned as Syaoran splashed over and took his bird gingerly from the wolf, careful not to touch him in the process.

"Because it's funny," Fai said sweetly, paddling over to Kurogane. "Can I have Pest back, please? It's not that I object to you having your hands all over her, it's just inconvenient when we're in the middle of the ocean and I can't tear your clothes off and fuck you."

"Oh, god," Syaoran said in a small appalled voice.

"I hate you all," Kurogane said.


End file.
